I look forward to indignant opinion pieces about how crime would go down if only “the culture” would change and people would stop insisting they never saw anything happen:

Former priest Russell Romano allegedly abused at least 13 boys between 1973 and 1991.

But even when the evidence against him seemed damning, church officials were conflicted about what they should do if more victims came forward. One even wrote, “We don’t want to be snitches,” newly released church documents show.

Romano, who has never been prosecuted, was quietly ordered by the archdiocese to stay away from children in 1986, after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services in 1986 found “credible evidence” that he got children at Quigley Preparatory Seminary drunk, showed them pornographic movies and abused them.

His lenient treatment meant he was able to make a career as a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor after he quit the active priesthood in 1991.

Power protects itself, first last and always. Any kind of power. The power over a block, over a church, over a city. Is this really so hard to understand? Survival is survival, and if you know you won’t be protected if you talk, if you know nobody will believe you, for years and years nobody will believe you, how long do you keep shouting? When the people telling you to sit down and shut up are the only ones who can afford you any protection at all?

That the people who survived this abuse kept talking about it until somebody listened, even years later, took unimaginable, horrifying strength.

A.